Joy and Happiness at home

Farah (Arabic for “Happiness”), 11, and her sister Marah (Arabic for “Joy”), 9, arrived from Syria to Egypt in 2023. They couldn’t enroll in any school due to the difficulty of obtaining residential permit. At this time, there was a huge demand due to the increased number of refugees coming to Egypt following the Sudanese war. According to the UNHCR, 310,000 Sudanese have crossed into Egypt since the start of violence in their country.

Their Grandmother, Maysaa, says, “Farah and Marah are my first grandchildren; they are my happiness and joy! They were born in Syria and witnessed the war. I came to Egypt 8 years ago.”

Due to the deteriorating economic situation in Syria, Maysaa suggested her daughter to come to Egypt with her granddaughters seeking a better future for the family.

When Maysaa faced difficulties enrolling her granddaughters into schools, she thought about ways to make their free time useful and productive. The residential permits they are seeking are expected to be processed in a year, which means that the girls would spend two years without attending school. How to the girls spend their school days with no school?

Homeschooling was the family’s solution to compensate for the girls’ education gap. They searched online for platforms that offer free lessons on the Egyptian curriculum or general educational videos.

For the grandmother, girls’ education is almost more important than boys’. She says, “A girl’s education is the most important thing for her her degree is her armor, especially with all the hardship around us.”

For Maysaa, her degree and experience as a former principal in a private kindergarten helped her land a job and support her family after being displaced to Egypt.

The grandmother took the girls to the nearby Caritas Egypt office for educational activities and psychological support.

This centre, supported by UNICEF, provides services such as psychological support, speech therapy, learning assistance, art therapy and skills development for refugee and migrant children who have experienced violence and abuse.  The centre has a case management team, along with psychologists and specialists, who provide psychological support sessions tailored to each child's care plan in cooperation with the children’s caregivers.

To address the psychological stress and sleep problems the girls faced, specialists used therapeutic methods such as art therapy to help them express themselves and cope with the trauma of war and the difficulties of moving to a new community.

Another activity the grandmother uses to occupy  Farah and Marah’s free time is helping out with house chores. In the picture, the girls are making coffee for the visitors.

On her grandmother’s advice, Farah regularly goes to a nearby gym to stay fit and healthy – both mentally and physically.

Farah says, “All girls need to play sports, to be healthy and have a strong, flexible body. This will make girls feel their strength. It was hard at first, but I never gave up.” 

Marah wishes to become a dentist when she grows up. This is why she is hoping for her voice to be heard by decision makers so she can enroll in school at the earliest. 

Marah fondly remembers playing with her sister in the garden of their house in Syria. Her favourite Syrian dish is “Yalanji” (grape leaves stuffed with rice).

When asked about what she wants when she gets back home, Marah said, “I will ask grandmother to cook Yalanji it for us.”

The centre that helped Farah and Marah provides approximately 450 to 500 individual sessions per month to many refugee and migrant children and their families. It is one of 10 specialized psychological support centres in four governorates in Egypt (Alexandria, Damietta, Cairo, Aswan) and is part of UNICEF's response to support refugee children and their families in Egypt.

Since the start of the Syrian crisis, UNICEF was one of the first organizations to offer immediate aid to Syrian refugees all over the world. This humanitarian response has extended to Sudanese and Palestinian children following the wars in their countries, with generous support from the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, the European Union, Netherland’s PROSPECTS partnership and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.